PLATO (427-347) and his influence on Western Philosophy Mario Neva Djimé Grand Philosophat November 2012 It is difficult to establish the extent of Plato’s influence on human culture, so profound, original and wide is the legacy he has left through his works. Plato left us 36 dialogues and 13 letters, which after his death were handed down through the centuries, preserving their appeal and stimulating ever new translators and interpreters. Each new translation of Plato’s collected works has brought or signposted a renewal of philosophy and also in part of theology. Plato’s translations are therefore a very relevant issue in Western philosophy, an issue running in parallel with the question of the translation of the Bible. There are justified doubts regarding the complete authenticity of the 13 letters, but Plato’s thought rises like the sun’s light from these writings. This is certainly not the place for such a discussion. Suffice it to say that there are no reasonable doubts regarding the authenticity of the most important texts, their individual and collective coherence, and above all regarding the genius of their author. Plato’s biography and his thought were well known during his life and immediately after his death, due to the illustrious status of his Academy, dedicated to Athens, the divine protector of the Polis. The Academy started its activity after Plato’s first journey to Syracuse, in 487, when he, a man of forty, was already rich in experiences and rich in contacts with living philosophies all around the Mediterranean area (Megara, Egypt, Italy). We stress this aspect to counter the widespread misapprehension that abstraction, and consequently theory, are far from life. On the contrary, theories and abstractions in Philosophy are the splendid and vigorous daughters of much experience. This is true for Plato’s thought above all; it is from this realistic and ‘holistic’ approach to real life that Plato’s famous doctrine of the Hyperuranium, the world of ideas and of the metaphysic Kingdom, takes its original form. Plato’s Academy continued for almost 1000 years until Justinian closed it in 529 AC. The Academy was thought of as a school where Philosophy becomes a methodical rigorous path to follow, an all-embracing concept of education like PAIDEIA, at once intellectual and moral, also inclusive of religious observance. This public institution marked the future of Philosophy itself. Aristotle’s Gymnasium, the Stoics’ Portico and Epicurus’ Garden, but also later Jewish and Christian Theological schools, like Alexandria, take important inspiration from Plato’s Academy. The Academy started the process whereby Philosophy became a Greek social reality and a public institution, not only the dream of solitary thinkers. Another reason compels us to dwell a little longer on this topic. It would have been impossible for Plato’s thought to achieve such widespread diffusion and influence without a living school, a learning environment for students like Aristotle. The continuous production of philosophical work requires active readers with whom a philosopher can discuss ideas, convers In Plato’s Academy Philosophy is a synonymous of Dialectics. The Tübingen School led by Jaeger emphasized a statement contained in the VII letter, in which Plato, as in Phaedrus, describes philosophy as a spoken and living thing, only prepared by and channeled through the written word. This is another facet of Plato’s irony: through Socrates’ mouth he pushes the limits everywhere, and in this case, while the dialogue insists on the superiority of live speech, the written text reaches a superior literary style. Entering Plato’s Philosophy is always a great adventure, a joyful, playful adventure. At this point we must address the extraordinary links between Plato and Socrates, and between Plato and Aristotle. In considering the originality of each, their relationships, their intellectual and moral genius, it is very difficult to put things down to coincidence. Catholic thinkers correctly ascribe this to a providential plan, thus adding another point of view, the theological one, to the philosophical journey. We believe however that this providential interpretation is acceptable only if we extend it to the whole of the world’s history, rather than just to one particular moment. In Plato’s earlier writings, like the Apology, Socrates appears as the symbol of Philosophy, contrasted against the Sophists, as we have already said, and Aristotle’s critique of Plato’s doctrine of ideas reveals more semi-hidden similarities than superficial oppositions … Confronted with such a great personality we must caliber our approach to him and make sure we think of Plato as a man rather than a myth. First we must consider his own PAIDEIA. He came from a rich family. His education was characteristic of the upper classes. During his youth he was considered a poet, able to write and to speak. This means without any doubt that he was strongly associated with established education, and oriented towards public and political affairs. After the first stages of his education, he preserved the ability to study, and keep his mind open to worldwide culture (we must remember that at that time philosophy embraced all cultural interests). Mathematics, music and nature observation also find their place in this quadrant. We must also say that Plato’s capacity for assimilation was extraordinary… Heraclitus, Parmenides, Cratylus, Anaxagoras, Pythagoras, Euclid, Gorgias, Protagoras, Egyptian beliefs, poems, especially Homer’s and Hesiod’s works, all is assimilated in a superior synthesis. In his dialogues we find the first organized history of Greek Philosophy. We can certainly consider his approach to the early history of Western thought a subjective one, but geniuses’ subjectivity always has universal teachings to offer. In particular, Plato pointed to Parmenides and Heraclitus as the fathers of Philosophy and to Socrates as the moral paragon of living Philosophy. All attempts to overcome this hermeneutic canon have failed. Coming from an excellent and aristocratic education, Plato then actively participates to the political and cultural life of Athens, in the historical phase of its decadence following the Peloponnesian war, which started in 426 and ended miserably in 404 (Plato was born in 428). His family was actively and tragically involved in the period of the Thirty tyrants, therefore all his political analyses, especially the POLITEIA, are not the dreamy idylls of an utopic visionary, but snapshots anchored in reality, and perhaps ironic denunciation: in his city the rule or reason has become impossible. On this subject, as we have already said, it seems to us that K. Popper speaks like a blind man. What is absolutely not modern in Plato’s thought is its radical orientation towards a rigorously moral behavior. Plato was twenty years old in 399 when he witnessed Socrates’ trial and death sentence. Biographies state that having listened to Socrates’ lessons young Plato abandoned poetry and his artistic and political aspirations. Socrates’ death deeply affected Plato’s life and thought. Truth and Justice, morals and Philosophy, good life and good thinking, happiness and reason are the facets of the same reality. This awareness runs through the whole of Plato’s production like a golden thread, and reaches its apex in the definition of justice as belonging to the divine dimension, as the most attractive idea. But, in order to be seduced by justice, man needs to undergo a process of purification, and to mature the ability to overcome his human attachment to opinions (DOXA). In this wider sense, all Plato’s philosophy, his whole theory of acknowledge can be described as the journey from DOXA-opinion to ALETHEIA- truth-. It is also a journey from physical to metaphysical inquiry. The image devised by Plato is felicitous; he says that at first philosophers follow a natural and easy way, or a ‘first navigation’, while they observe the things; but in so doing they cannot see the meaning of what they observe, so that a second navigation, the dialectic one, becomes necessary: that is Philosophy as a journey, but also Philosophy as definitive goal. When Heidegger criticizes Plato’s doctrine of truth, he reveals his inability to understand this Socratic overcoming of death; he sees Plato involved in the stupid business of building metaphysic like a LEGO, the ONTOTEOLOGY. So did Plato create Metaphysics or discover it? That is the question, one as important, we think, as Shakespeare’s to be or not to be. But we know that Heidegger was a simple teacher, limited by his culture. The very heart of Plato’s Philosophy is the journey from opinions to truth; it was people’s opinion which brought Socrates to death. The speculative centre of this journey is a perfect perception of the interior life. Plainly put, that centre is a constant reflection on ourselves, a true and constant full self-consciousness of our spiritual soul. That is not a cultural or historical question, it is at the very heart of speculative life. In short Plato maintains that it is not enough to learn philosophy, the question is to think: that is the reason way he proclaims ‘if a man is Dialectic, he is Dialectic, but if a man is not Dialectic, he is not at all’…Dialectic here is synonymous with Philosopher. Evidently we are confronted by an aristocratic vision of philosophy. Starting from his self- consciousness Plato becomes a spectator of universal and concrete existence, and through this insight he can access a superior acknowledge, as in Heraclitus’ sentence about the unlimited perspective of LOGOS and the SOUL. ‘You will not find out the limits of the soul when you go, travelling on every road, so deep a logos’ it possesses. This passage was sadly denied by Nietzsche, Marx and Freud, so far they lived from the philosophical meadows, but to this day it rules all metaphysical inferences…the true aim of metaphysics is therefore not to create new worlds but to discover that reality without intelligible, ideal and divine world, is not logic, it is absurd.